Stephen Lovegrove is the permanent secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, although when hearing him speak about his work one could sometimes be forgiven for mistaking him for, say, someone from Greenpeace. Take his speech to the Concito conference in Denmark a few weeks ago for example.
For a start, Concito describes itself as a green think tank. One therefore wonders why a politically neutral civil servant is lending his support to environmentalists - who are nothing if not a political movement - in this way. And then read the text of the speech and try to work out whether this is a politically neutral civil servant putting government policy into action or a fully paid up member of the green movement:
...we believe that in realising the transition to a low carbon economy we a driving economic growth now, and laying the foundations for a more-prosperous, more-resilient economy in the decades to come.
For the UK, the [Climate Change] Act has provided a symbol of our ambition.
In all of this Government’s resolve is tested and the cost questioned.
But we are doing this because we continue to recognise the very real threat to our prosperity posed by Climate Change.
And then what about his remarks about green jobs?
...since 2010 £29bn has been invested in UK renewables creating around 30,000 jobs - up and down supply chains and across the UK – many in some of the most-deprived areas far from economic centres.
I make that £1 million per job created. No wonder renewables are so expensive.